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Saturday, March 26, 2005

According to a report by the Associated Press, U.S. officials are "concerned" that Iran is reportedly buying and stockpiling high-tech small arms weapons as well as heavier equipment such as tanks, cruise missiles, etc. - Dave Lindorff

Way down in the piece it mentions that the U.S. continues to leave open the possibility, raised by President Bush himself, of attacking Iran over its alleged efforts to produce enriched uranium which could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Now, if you go around threatening to invade a nation--especially a nation where you already have a record of having overthrown one government and of having sent in an airborne assault force--and especially if you have just invaded another country, one that is a neighbor of the nation you are now threatening--shouldn't you expect that that nation will be preparing for your attack?

A government that did not take steps to prepare for such a threatened invasion would be derelict in the extreme. Which should have us citizens in the U.S. asking questions about just what the hell our own belligerent government is trying to do here.

Arguably, the reason Iran is working at providing itself with a nuclear capability is precisely because it feels threatened by the U.S., and has noticed that those countries that have nuclear weapons--Israel, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, and North Korea--seem to get treated a lot better by the U.S. than countries like Syria, Iraq and Vietnam, which don't.

As well, arguably Iran could see making trouble on the sly in neighboring Iraq, where the entire U.S. military is now tied down battling a growing insurgency, as its best insurance against being invaded or attacked, since as long as the U.S. is so over-extended there, it would be unlikely to start yet another war with a much larger and more politically unified nation.

If the goal of the U.S. were to enhance the security of the Middle East region, to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, and to enhance the safety of Americans and of American interests, one would think it would be trying to reach some kind of modus vivendi with Iran, as it has done with China and Russia, so as to lesson the perceived need of the Iranians to enhance their military capabilities and screw with Iraq.

That, however, is not what the U.S. is doing. Instead it is blustering, making threats, and acting outraged at efforts made by Iran to protect itself, all of which can only have the effect of making the Iranians even more nervous and anxious to prepare for the worst.

http://www.internetayatollah.nl/ayatollah.jpg

One would almost think that the U.S. was trying to provoke Iran.

Whatever the neo-con lunatics are thinking over there in the White House basement, the Pentagon and the State Department with regard to Iran, they are certainly operating on a huge double standard.

Here at home, we're told that we need to consider voiding the nuclear test-ban treaty so our scientists can develop new theater nuclear weapons, like bunker-busting mini-nukes. We're told that we should be developing space-based weapons systems that could destroy armies from space without warning. We're told that we should spend billions developing robot warriors so that we can go off into the Third World killing at will without having to sacrifice our own soldiers. But when China, which spends less on its entire military than the U.S. spends on a single weapon system, increases its military spending, the American government starts screaming bloody murder.

We offer almost state-of-the-art F-16 fighter-bombers, capable of delivering nuclear bombs, to Pakistan, a military dictatorship that has the bomb and that is in a simmering, decades-long border conflict with its nuclear neighbor India--an incredibly dangerous provocation--and then cry foul when Ukraine sells a few cruise missiles to Iraq, which doesn't even have nukes at this point.

It wouldn't be so bad if the U.S. media would at least point out the hypocrisy of all this, but that's not what happens. All we get are the reports of alleged bad, threatening behavior by other countries, not the astonishing provocations of our own regime.

If you get your news from the U.S. media, the trilateral meeting between the North American heads of state was mostly a feel-good session to smooth over ruffled feathers in relationships over the past years. Given the lack of content in the official declarations, you have to wonder why they even bothered at all.

But the real agenda was a little more complex. To understand what happened at the recent North American summit, you have to read between the lines of the chummy public pronouncements.

Several of the real motives were evident from the beginning. First, the Bush administration owed a diplomatic debt to Mexico's President Fox. Despite its refusal to vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq , Fox's government has supported virtually every other major U.S. initiative in both bilateral and global forums. It has acted as a henchman for U.S. interests (recall when Fox, as host to the Monterrey Summit, explicitly asked Fidel Castro to leave before Bush arrived) even at high internal political costs for a nation accustomed to a more independent role with respect to its northern neighbor.

In the face of efforts to integrate Latin America , Fox's Mexico has consistently edged its loyalties northward toward the Colossus of the North, which accounts for over 90% of its international trade. The nation has even accepted the ludicrous "national security" framework imposed by the United States on the bilateral relationship--despite the absence of terrorist threats from Mexico --and let the crucial immigration issue fall by the wayside. With the State Department more aggressively defining Latin American countries as "with us" and "against us" it was important to offer a little political support to the Fox government for standing so firmly in the "with us" column.

The issue with Canada was the opposite. Canada has been stridently insisting on resolutions to the export restrictions on its beef and lumber, and recently crossed the Bush administration by refusing to participate in the continental missile-defense proposal. In his declarations, Prime Minister Paul Martin strongly reiterated these positions. The leaders, however, agreed to view differences in the context of an overarching commitment to shared goals.

Both Fox and Martin were finally conceded twenty-minute bilateral meetings in private with Bush. President Fox announced that as a result of his meeting, Bush committed to presenting an immigration proposal to Congress. No dates were defined, and apparently the specific content of the proposal was not addressed. Nor did the U.S. president commit to working closely with Congress, or even members of his own party, to obtain approval.

Indeed, in his final remarks President Bush was notably non-committal about the fate of such a proposal: "you've got my pledge I'll continue to work on it. You don't have my pledge that Congress will act, because I'm not a member of the legislative branch." It was a surprising admission of limitations from a president whose party controls both houses of Congress and who boasted after his electoral triumph that he'd "gained political capital and was going to spend it."

The immigration proposal Bush tried to float last year was shot down in the crossfire between those who opposed any loosening of the border, and those who claimed it did not go far enough by failing to provide amnesty and citizenship measures. There is no indication that this year will be any different; in fact the domestic debate on immigration has become more polarized than ever.

The pre-announced "Alliance for Security and Prosperity" was barely mentioned in the official declarations. Unspecified working groups are slated to elaborate on unspecified proposals, and present strategies in three months. Emphasizing that "(security and prosperity) go hand in hand" Bush stated that the prosperity agenda in the hemisphere is based on free trade while the security agenda continues to pivot on counterterrorism measures.

Although unsaid, the prosperity part also has to do with the need for the United States to reinforce the North American Free Trade Agreement in the face of the dismal prospects of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas .

Given the meteoric rise of China and increased pressures in the WTO, the U.S. trade agenda has come home again with a renewed emphasis on fortifying the regional trade bloc. In this context, a NAFTA-Plus--the shorthand for greater integration within the region--far from being an expansion toward the inclusion of social and environmental issues including labor flows, is seen as a reaffirmation of mutual roles as front-line markets and suppliers. Bush also put in a plug for CAFTA, soon to be voted on in Congress, but according to scuttlebutt still several votes shy of passage.

Finally, security issues took the headlines and most of the ink at this meeting, to nobody's surprise. However, nothing concrete was announced. It is likely that the Bush administration has asked Mexico for more stringent border protection measures on the shared border and to further close off its southern border to flows of Central American migrants. But to make a formal announcement to that affect would be a public relations bombshell for Fox at a time when his political capital is exceedingly low. For its part, Canada agreed to increase Smart Border measures while refusing major militarization measures such as the proposed U.S. missile-defense system.

So after the pecan pie and the handshakes, nothing much had changed. The "trilateral relationship" continues to be a double bilateral relationship, mediated not just geographically but diplomatically by the central power--the United States . The agendas of the junior partners-- Canada on dispute resolution mechanisms, Mexico on immigration--received only cursory and rhetorical attention while U.S.-defined security took precedence over daily realities.

In short, the United States continued to call the shots in a summit that looked more like a traveling stage show than a true meeting of nations.

Joan Russow, of the Global Compliance Research Institute on world progress for women and Beijing + Ten

And, Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed with all that's good to do in and around Victoria.

Jenin --- Jon Elmer photo

Despite the much hyped hope for a peace in Palestine/Israel that accompanied the new leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli disengagement from parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has not materialized as promised by Ariel Sharon.

Despite a unilateral ceasefire declared by the Palestinian leadership, Israeli incursions into towns and villages continues; the bulldozing continues; the illegal seizure of property continues; and construction of the Great Wall continues.

So, what’s behind the optimism reported in the North American press?

Jon Elmer is a Halifax-based journalist who’s lived among the people of occupied Palestine. He produces the blog, ‘From Occupied Palestine.org’ Jon Elmer in the first half.

And; it’s been ten years since then first lady, Hillary Clinton led the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China.

feministing.com-- graphic

This year, delegates from around the world met at the United Nations in New York City to discuss what progress has been made since the adoption of the so-called ‘Beijing Platform for Action.’

Joan Russow is a well-known local activist and former National Leader of the Green Party of Canada. She’s affiliated now with the Global Compliance Research Institute and their efforts to put into force existing international law and covenants currently being ignored. Joan went down to the States to attend ‘Beijing + Ten’ and will join us in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week. But first, Jon Elmer on the hope and hype in the eye of the middle-east storm.

Friday, March 25, 2005

The blurring of political distinctions between America's two major political parties, achieved through Democratic acquiescence to Republican ideas on every major national question, has prompted some progressives to conclude that Democrats and Republicans are now essentially identical. This conflation is a dangerous error: it is too kind an evaluation of the Democratic Party. For to view Democrats as mere Republican clones is to discount the far more pernicious role they play in encouraging a politically conservative framework that traps and demoralizes many Americans into adopting right-wing positions in the first place.

If Democrats simply paralleled Republicans, they would be politically redundant. But the Democrats are not duplicative - they are duplicitous. Peddling slightly less reactionary programs and packaging them in more appealing rhetoric, they soften up, placate and paralyze possible popular opposition to right-wing attacks. This creates the groundwork for future assaults by the Right. The Republican agenda, ugly, brutal, and brazen as it is, could not possibly pierce the public on its own - but the sordid record of Democratic appeasement has locked, loaded, and enabled right-wing advances.

How does this happen?

To illustrate the process, it is first necessary to outline its general features in broad terms, and then show it in motion by examining Democratic capitulations to the Right on prominent issues: Iraq, abortion, gay marriage, social security and the conservative backlash.

Broadly speaking, there exists a clear common pattern underlying the dynamic by which the Left continuously loses ground to the Right. The Republican Party seizes the initiative by actively mobilizing its assets, ideas, and ideology to work toward its radical goals. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party does not pull in the opposite direction. It does not mobilize aggressively for its own goals. Nor does it defend vigorously against right-wing designs. This passiveness takes on major significance precisely because the party poses as a friend of ordinary people. In this context its inaction becomes action - a tacit acceptance and approval of right-wing maneuvers. The Democratic Party's role as the legitimizing agent of right-wing stances allows and locks into place political boundaries in which only right-wing ideas can prevail. This initial acquiescence constitutes phase (a) of Democratic Party cultivation of conservatism.

What makes this process so poisonous is a unique combination of American pragmatism and American political structure. American pragmatism, or the popular public understanding of politics, dictates that at the end of the day there must be an end to bickering and some sort of bipartisan compromise - a 'fair middle between extremes,' like the philosophy behind Aristotle's Golden Mean. American political structure, or the structure of two dominant parties, fosters the assumption that each party exists in opposition to one another, creating a kind of symmetrical polarization. Pragmatism and politics, then, should neatly overlap: the political center should lie between the two parties.

But real-life Democratic passivity in the face of Republican onslaughts vitiates this assumption of parties as polar opposites. A 'middle ground,' when chosen, ends up not between two extremes, but rather between the right-wing extreme of the Republicans and the 'slightly-to-the-left-of-that-same-extreme' Democrats. Whatever lies on the real left end on the spectrum is therefore thrown out of the picture entirely. As time passes, the right-wing Republican-Democratic snippet from the old spectrum becomes the basis for the new spectrum. And from this new more rightist-oriented spectrum, the process will repeat itself, producing an even more right-wing 'middle ground.' The ongoing result is an ever-increasing expansion of the conservative viewpoint at the expense of a quickly-diminishing progressive viewpoint. This distortion of the spectrum comprises phase (b) of the conservative-creating dynamic.

The process is only deepened when a Democrat captures power at any level. He will have been elected because his slightly left-wing rhetoric appeals to people. But because this rhetoric is belied by a fundamentally right-wing basis which bars all possibility of meaningful change, disaster results. For the voters who elected the Democrat to solve a given social or economic issue, upon seeing it unsolved or worsen after the application of some hollowed-out 'leftist' program, will cast blame upon the general progressive ideas and concepts which never drove that program in the first place.

Blame turns into hatred and contempt once the Republican arrives on the scene. Because of the nature of the two-party dynamic, the Democrat's failure means the ball of public trust rolls into the Republican's court - and the Republican plays the game well. For to secure and advance his party's agenda he attacks not only the Democrat, but the leftist ideas people associate with the Democrat - an association fostered by the false belief of parties as polar opposites and the Democrat's propping up of that belief for his own public relations purposes. This discrediting of leftist ideas through fakery is the final phase (c) of the dynamic.

It does not require much investigation to note how gravely this dynamic has disfigured and deformed the American political scene. All three of its phases - (a) acceptance of rightist advances, (b) acquiescence to increasingly right-wing 'middle grounds' resulting from these advances, and (c) backlash caused by 'leftist' programs rendered toothless by these distorted 'middle grounds' - have severely fractured the potential for achieving a better world at every turn.

Now, we turn to specific examples.

The amazingly destructive power of all three phases comes into full view when considering the war in Iraq. First, what options did the Democratic Party make available to those Americans who never wanted war? None. It maintained a cowardly silence when the Right launched a campaign of blatant lies and fear-mongering to whip up a case for war that was neither substantiated by the evidence nor necessitated by reality. In so doing, the party not only failed those Americans who never even desired war - and there were many - but it also allowed the right-wing propaganda machine to inculcate hatred and brainwash many Americans into becoming pro-war. That is phase (a), acquiescence, in action.

Second, what options did the Democratic Party provide to those Americans who saw the justifications for war slip, change, and fail, who learned of the miserable lack of post-war planning, who noticed the intensified Iraqi armed resistance, and who felt the constant flow of American casualties, making them increasingly skeptical of and opposed to the war? The party told them to shut up and sit down - quite literally in the case of the DNC in Boston, where even though most delegates were anti-war, expression of anti-war sentiment was forbidden. More broadly, the party adopted the position that since the invasion already happened, it was now necessary to deepen the war effort. In other words, it succumbed to right-wing momentum which dictated that anti-war politics was no longer respectable. Taking their cue, Democrats discarded those politics, acceding to the right-ward shift in the political spectrum that characterizes phase (b).

Most embarrassing and insulting, however, was an aborted attempt at phase (c), when the Democratic Party built up a candidate by touting his war record and then tasked him with appearing slightly to the left of Bush on militarism. This was a bit like ordering an elephant to perform ballet in a china shop. The result was the awesome spectacle of a highly decorated war veteran being torn down, ridiculed, and emasculated as a "flip-flopper" on the war by an opponent whose own record of military service could generously be described as pathetic. In this case the slightly left-wing rhetoric appeared so incongruous with the reactionary policy basis that it backfired before electoral victory could be achieved; in the right-wing framework of belligerence, aggression, and warmongering, a tough-sounding weakling came out stronger than a ponderous warrior.

The admittedly pitiful fate of John Kerry, however, is hardly the main point. By adopting the right-wing framework, the Democratic Party destroyed a chance to develop and deepen anti-war sentiment, and instead demoralized and frustrated those who were looking for a real alternative and a way to end the war. Kerry's awkward attempts to criticize details of the war while sometimes demanding more warlike measures than Bush made a mockery of genuine anti-war politics and tarnished the image of the real anti-war movement.

Let us also take a look at Democratic complicity in the outpouring of moral effluvia over abortion and gay marriage. Much ink has been wasted about the supposed emergence of "moral values" as a new reality around which Democrats must solemnly redraw their battle lines and retreat even further to the right. Anyone interested in defending the leftist position would refuse to acquiesce to the pretentious pseudo-morality undergirding Republican "values." He or she would ask why the "culture of life" does not extend to people who are actually living, like American children and mothers in poverty, or Iraqi civilians under bombs, and why the "sanctity of marriage" is to be decided not by the actual people wanting marriage, but by the federal government.

But the Democratic Party has other plans. Its leadership has already declared more "nuanced" positions on abortion and steered clear of defending gay marriage on principle. This retreat, undeniably manifest in recent months but already present in its embryonic stages years ago, quite literally activated the conservative agenda: the vast majority of those millions of Christian evangelists who turned out for Bush in the last election had never even been politically active in the past. They were mobilized by the expansion of the right-wing (and shrinking of the left-wing) presence on the political spectrum, a reality typified by phase (b) of the conservative-creating dynamic. That the Democrats are technically less "reactionary" on abortion and gay marriage is therefore totally irrelevant; they are contributing de facto to the ideological atmosphere that will ultimately end up destroying support for these causes.

Indeed, the basis for the broader phenomenon referred to as the "white backlash" or "silent majority" which forms the backbone of conservative working-class support today is an outcome of the Democrats' conservative-friendly politics. Democratic abandonment of core working-class economic interests, a trend detailed in Thomas Frank's What's The Matter With Kansas, has made possible Bush's assault on the New Deal legacy and his attempt to forge an "ownership society" ideology. As the Democrats have allowed the safety net underpinning American society to crumble under the pressure of a more naked capitalism, the ideology behind the safety net is coming under sustained attack. In an expression of phase (c), the Republicans are trying to further "starve the beast" of social security, as economist Paul Krugman calls it - and then point to the weakness of "the beast" as a sign it has failed to solve the problems it is capable of alleviating when properly fed.

This Bush assault, however, is merely an extension of an existing backlash against welfare and social programs enacted by Kennedy and Johnson under pressure from Civil Rights period. Conservative mythology posits these government programs as promoting laziness and producing only welfare queens, pointing to the persistence of black poverty, crime, and unemployment as evidence of leftist bankruptcy. But the empirical evidence, as detailed in Michael Harrington's The New American Poverty and Jill Quadagno's The Color of Welfare, illustrates these programs were in fact starved of funding, crippled politically, or aborted altogether because the Democratic Party failed to challenge entrenched economic interests, confront white racism, or extricate itself from Vietnam. This sabotaging of America's last real attempt at social change has fostered the notion that solutions to social problems are themselves the problem. Resentment fed by this misconception has set into motion the forces now fueling America's ascendant right wing.

By now the internal dynamics of the overall process by which Democrats serve as a segue for conservatism should be clear. Precisely why this takes place, however - why it is not Republicans who segue into Democrats, or why the two do not simply exist in equilibrium - is a much more complicated question that cannot be adequately addressed in the scope of this piece. It is possible here only to point to two potential factors driving Democratic acquiescence: the absence of socialist pressure due to the collapse of the Soviet experiment, and the presence of capitalist pressure brought upon by the relative decline of the US economy compared to China and the European Union. This pincer movement of ideological triumphalism and economic straitjacketing may be severely limiting the basis for even modest genuine Democratic progressivism.

But regardless of the precise reasons behind this phenomenon, the lessons to be drawn from its ultimate results remain absolutely the same: the Democratic Party is inimical to any struggle for serious social change. At every level, it throws up massive barriers to progressive ideas, actions, and principles. The party's most basic modus operandi is enmeshed with all three phases of the conservative-creating process, and contributes to weakening the Left in grave ways. It snuffs out hope for a better world among ordinary people, activates the right-wing framework which leads many toward reactionary positions, and discredits authentic leftist ideas before they can even be presented by those committed to actually seeing them through.

Given this immovable reality, we must ask ourselves: what is to be done? First, it must be said with blunt honesty that it is suicidal to work with forces organizationally and financially tied to the Democratic Party at leadership levels. It is necessary, in a word, to make a clean break from the Democratic Party. The recent betrayal of the anti-war movement by MoveOn should serve as a clear reminder to serious progressives of the need to make this clean break, and of Upton Sinclair's matchless insight that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

One thing we have already seen beyond any doubt: to debate whether Democrats are "better" than Republicans in some moral or metaphysical sense is an absolutely meaningless and puerile exercise. Together, Democrats and Republicans make for an absolutely lethal combination - and that is all that matters. To work within the overall process in which both parties are cultivating and contributing to conservative interests is to court disaster.

Our task, then, is not to worry over where to line up among the ranks of Republicans or Democrats. Rather, it is to throw ourselves on the side of those who have been under relentless attack by these parties: the great majority of the American people. A ceaseless onslaught of sharp assaults, repeated betrayals, endless deceptions, and enormous lies - all of which have gone unchallenged and unchecked for far too long - have been hammering away at ordinary Americans. It is these ranks which we must join, and, given the low level of current struggle, it is these ranks which we must help energize and mobilize.

Some will protest that this is too bold a declaration - that the road ahead is too hard. It should be readily conceded that the road is hard - indeed, we should go a step further and say the road has yet to be built, and furthermore, that this is a great relief - for history shows us precious few examples of roads to justice that were laid down in advance by some deity from above; it also shows us that roads glittering with gold or adorned with riches are traveled by masters, paved by slaves, and lead straight to hell.

The road to justice, on the other hand, must be created by the people themselves, because it is their own collective future that is at stake. It is precisely the task of our times to work side by side with those millions of Americans victimized by modern capitalism - workers, women, veterans, people of color, and immigrants - and join them in carving out the path that will lead all of us toward a more secure and humane future.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------M. Junaid Alam, 22, is co-editor of the leftist youth journal Left Hook , and a student at Northeastern University in Boston. He can be reached at alam@lefthook.org.From Latest Release: How the Democratic Party Creates Conservatism Occupation Is Not (Women's) Liberation: Confronting 'Imperial Feminism' and Building a Feminist Anti-War Movement Arctic Plunder For Petrol: ANWR, Indians and Pipelines "The Plank in Our Eye": On Gay Marriage From Previous Release: Some Ground Reports from Second Iraq War Anniversary Protests in US A European Columbia Student's Experience: Campus is Fanatically Pro-Israel, Anti-Muslim Dershowitz's Demagogy: Thoughts on Alan Dershowitz at Columbia University Reflexive Racism in Israel and America In the Spirit of Rachel Corrie: Confronting Caterpillar in San Leandro Please Donate: Visit our Donations Page A Recruitment Report Download Anti-Recruitment .PDF Report Issued by CAN Discussion List Issues: Drawing a Balance Sheet of the Anti-War Protests of M20 (1) Drawing a Balance Sheet of the Anti-War Protests of M20 (2) Drawing a Balance Sheet of the Anti-War Protests of M20 (3) Drawing a Balance Sheet of the Anti-War Protests of M20 (4) Addressing the Failures of Past Socialisms To join our discussion list, go here Join Our Info. List:

Big Brother, Little Brother: Body Double

Far from the hurly-burly in Florida, where the Bush brothers and their shameless minions have sought to milk maximum "political capital" from the ravaged body of a brain-dead woman, the true moral values of these gilded hypocrites were on stark display last week in a quiet corner of the Bushes' adopted homeland: Texas.

This week, U.S. President George W. Bush melodramatically cut short one of his innumerable vacations and flew back to Washington to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo when a Florida court granted her husband's request to cut off her life support after she had spent 15 years in a vegetative state. But days before, even as the president was supporting his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, and congressional Republicans in "defending the culture of life" in the Schiavo case, doctors in Houston were pulling the breathing tube from the throat of an ailing infant. The boy suffocated within seconds, legally killed -- against the wishes of his anguished mother -- in accordance with a draconian law signed as a "cost-saving" measure by the state's former governor: George W. Bush.

There were no frenzied protests, no camera-friendly prayer vigils, no preening politicians at Texas Children's Hospital when 5-month-old Sun Hudson took his last breath. There was only his mother, Wanda, holding him in her arms as he died, the Houston Chronicle reported. Sun suffered from an extreme form of dwarfism, which is incurable and usually fatal. Early on, doctors recommended cutting off the breathing tube that kept his undersized lungs working. He was inert, they said, unresponsive -- essentially comatose.

Wanda Hudson disagreed. "I talked to him," she said. "He was conscious." Moving, looking around, he responded to her. Although the odds were long, she wanted to give him more time to develop, not give up on him after just a few months. Wishful thinking, a despairing parent's denial? Perhaps. But the law signed by Bush in 1999 took the decision out of her hands and gave it to hospital bureaucrats, allowing them to shut down a patient's life support -- even against the wishes of the patient's family or guardian -- if the medical brass decide that treatment is "nonbeneficial," the Chronicle noted.

Indeed, why throw away good money pumping air down the gullet of some defective infant, just to mollify his nobody of a mother? For, unlike Schiavo -- a nice middle-class white woman, a political marketer's dream -- Wanda Hudson was just another worthless black woman living in poverty, unable to afford prenatal care. Who would waste a dime on trash like that? It's much more beneficial to funnel that cash into the coffers of your political patrons -- like George and Jeb, now wallowing happily in the swamp of campaign grease they get from giant medical corporations. In return, they push government policies designed to keep Big Medicine's profits sky-high while gutting public obligations to provide health care for the hoi polloi.

So the hospital invoked the Bush Law on Sun Hudson. Just as in Florida, a local judge ruled that life-support systems must be removed, and the patient allowed to die a natural death. But strangely enough, the Texas judge was not reviled in the halls of Congress as a would-be murderer, as was his counterpart in Florida -- even though the latter was carrying out the wishes of Terri Schiavo's husband, her legal guardian, while the Bush Law used state power to override a mother's choice. Nor was the Texas judge subjected to death threats like the ones the Florida judge received from Bush's "armies of compassion."

No, Sun's mother stood alone. Those compassionate armies and congressional kibitzers failed to materialize on her behalf. President Bush -- usually so eager to wade in a with a few scripted words of pursed-lipped piety about "family values" and "defending life" -- kept his big mouth shut. The hospital would not allow the media to see Sun or interview Wanda Jackson -- again, against her wishes. "I wanted y'all to see him for yourselves," she told the press after Sun's death. But so what? When nobodies die, nobody cares.

Why the stark contrast between the two cases? Simple: There was no political hay to be made from Sun Hudson's plight. Spotlighting his situation might reflect badly on the Dear Leader -- and on the religious extremists now banking millions in contributions from their slick campaign to "save" Schiavo. For it turns out that the spearhead of Bush's Christian army in Florida, the "Right to Life" organization, actually helped Bush craft the 1999 law that took Sun Hudson's life, the Chronicle reported. The family-bashing measure was drawn up in backroom sessions between the Right-to-Lifers, Bush staffers and Big Medicine. It seems the "culture of life" ends where power politics and corporate money begin.

Bush doesn't care if Schiavo lives or dies. Her body -- like the bodies of the 100,000 Iraqis he has killed, like the bodies of the American soldiers being chewed up every day in his Babylonian conquest, like the bodies of the poor and working people whom he is methodically and remorselessly cutting off from medical care, financial protection against catastrophic illness, and legal redress against corporate predators -- is just a means to an end, the only end Bush cares about: increasing the power and wealth of his own rapacious circle of privileged elites.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, he will not do to serve this end. He'll wage war on false pretenses, he'll pervert the democratic process, he'll spit on the Constitution -- and he'll exploit the private suffering of families facing hideous dilemmas of life and death. There is no honor, no morality, no values in his "culture."

My secret is herein revealed — I'm an old sportswriter who has been playing the same game for nigh on half a century.

In this Internet incarnation, my subject matter has changed considerably, though the general purpose of my writing really has not. It has always been my intention to get people to reflect on the folly of the their own behavior, and these are lessons that can always be drawn against any background.

My first bylined newspaper story hit the streets in 1957. It was about my grammar school baseball team. Not so ironic that this my latest effort should be partly about the same game, beloved baseball, which I once, in my eagerly optimistic youth, regarded as a ritual of cosmic significance.

Now, at a time when shuffleboard would probably be the more appropriate game for me, I realize that baseball may not be the Zen-like avenue of transcendence I once imagined it to be, but it nevertheless is an appropriate sociological barometer of this pathetic hoax that is American popular culture.

So I thought when I watched canonized slugger Mark McGwire testify recently before a Congressional panel investigating the use of steroid drugs in professional baseball. His voice crackled. Tears welled in the corners his eyes. It soon became obvious that here was a man who had reaped the highest adulation of the unwashed masses and now was about to commit the public suicide of his glorious reputation.

Massive Mark

"Based on what my lawyer tells me, I cannot talk about my past history," McGwire told the puzzled committee. Rep. Charles Lewis asked for a clarification. "Does this mean you're taking the Fifth?" the Congressman asked. McGwire squirmed in his seat. His squeezed throat quested for air as he uncomfortably nodded his assent ... and watched his lifetime achievements evaporate in a puff of guilt-ridden smoke.

The refusal to answer meant the great slugger had cheated and couldn't talk about it. He had used chemical substances to improve his physical performance, which helped him break baseball's most hallowed record, the single season home run mark.

It was perhaps the most shattering moment in baseball history, equaled only by hit king Pete Rose's lifetime ban for gambling and the 1919 Black Sox scandal, after which eight players were banned for life for fixing the World Series.

But McGwire's case, devastating as it was to his own previously hallowed reputation, was even more ominous in the future revelations it foreshadowed — specifically, the implication of fellow slugger Barry Bonds in the same seamy and dishonest practice of boosting one's performance with drugs. And with the future of Bonds, a seven-time most valuable player and the dominant icon in the game today, soon expected to take a similar turn to the bleak, McGwire's silent self-destruction seemed to augur the impending destruction of America's national pastime itself.

Another nail in the coffin of a contrived and superficial culture.

In my mind, I tried to contemplate a comparative demoralization in the history of American culture, and all I could come up with was when U.S. troops had to bail out of Saigon by helicopter definitely with their tails between their legs.

Bye, Bye Saigon

Egotistical America had finally lost a war, and Americans didn't know what to make of it. It turned out we didn't learn our lesson.

Of course, comparing the relatively trivial issue of an ultimately meaningless form of entertainment to a major conflagration in which almost four million people lost their lives is a dubious example. But it's safe to say that a larger number of Americans care about baseball than care about the lives of innocent foreigners its Army arbitrarily snuffs out.

So in the sense of the debauched and misplaced American social focus, the two events actually are comparable.

But the collective American psyche is not likely learn the lesson in this new baseball tragedy, either.

That lesson would be that cheating and not competing fairly always catches up to the cheater, even if the scam undertaken seems undetectable at the outset of the attempt.

The comparison to the new fascist American government storming around the world and obliterating all who oppose is an obvious similarity. We all may only pray that this Pentagon adventurism comes to a similarly ignominious end.

But I wanted to linger a little longer on the entertainment level in an attempt to show how robotized and thoughtless America has become, because when you talk politics these days, most Americans just shut down and polarize along the border between compassionate consciousness and mindless dogma.

Seven Days in May

Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis used one of my favorite examples the other day to demonstrate the decline of American awareness (and intelligence and compassion) when he wrote about the ’60s movie “Seven Days in May,” which was based on a bestselling novel written around the time of the Cuban missile crisis and worldwide fears of a nuclear war.

In that black-and-white classic, Burt Lancaster plays the demonic General Scott, a right-wing lunatic who is frustrated by the humane agenda of a liberal president, played by Frederic March. Kirk Douglas plays the role of the hero, a subordinate of the demented general who alerts the well-meaning president about the coup that is about to take place, and the plot is foiled.

But the salient feature of the movie is Lancaster’s (the general’s) behavior. He is a classic Patriot, focused on enemies and without compassion or understanding. Even more astounding from the perspective of forty years later is that he sounds exactly like our current criminal president, George W. Bush.

In the early 1960s, Lancaster’s role was excoriated by both reviewers and audiences for its over-the-top portrayal of an obviously compulsive maniac. Yet today, President Bush’s virtually identical performance is depicted by today’s prostituted media as a legitimate leader with valid religious convictions.

I find this observation to be a perfect description of the difference between the conscious culture of the 1960s and the comatose culture of the first decade of the 21st century, as well as a confirmation of the trend in American movies that principled heroism is no longer a trait to be practiced.

Quentin's Contribution

Through its movies, America has descended

into a sewer of viciousness.

Speculating on how this pathological and regrettable degeneration of American culture occurred leads inevitably to the question of who owns both the media and the educational processes that led to this diminution of consciousness, this decommissioning of traditional moral boundaries, this death of the American good guy.

Who owns the process that has destroyed the America we hoped to love, the America for whom we now feel only contempt, mistrust and fear? Do you care enough about the answer to find out, or are you OK with the idea that both your livelihood and your life are about to be destroyed? Let me know your answer at some later date, if you care enough to answer at all.

And let me sketch just one more example of the degeneration of American culture, this drug-induced deflation of a once-honest populace, this bogus, superficial patriotism that has been converted by insincere jingoism into a murderous, emotionalism fascism that now threatens to turn the whole planet into a radioactive cinder.

It’s the music. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s dead.

Brittany Reflects

As popular culture of the Sixties mobilized to oppose the senseless war in Vietnam, numerous popular artists earned vast followings by standing up to the government’s sadistic slaughter of those who were called “gooks.”

Recently, I listened one of the many antiwar mantras that dominated the airwaves in about 1970. “Ohio,” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, was about the National Guard murders of four antiwar students at Kent State.

Gotta get down to it.Soldiers are cutting us down.Shoulda been done long ago.What if you knew herand found her dead on the ground?How can you run when you know?”

When I listened to this shortly after September 11, 2001, it seemed pretty inconsequential compared to what had just happened? But at least the attempt was there, the attempt to inform the world that something was wrong.

What I want to know is this?

Where are the songs about the World Trade Center, the greatest crime in American history, in which our own government staged a fake terrorist attack and killed three thousand of our own citizens?

Not a peep on the radio. After three years, not even a single syllable.

Where are the songs about Fallujah that could rival Gil Scot-Heron’s great classic “Johannesburg,” a riveting lament about the black fight for freedom against the oppression in South Africa?

Fallujah. The place braindead American zombies gunned down old people and children to the smiles of their superiors, and American newspapers covered it up. Covered up the gas, covered up the napalm, the destruction of hospitals, the prevention of medical care, then covered up the soldiers going back in and destroying the evidence that they used gas and napalm, and God knows what else.

What I want to say is this?

WHERE’S THE FUCKING SONG, ASSHOLE?!

And I’d like to address that question to every musician in America, in the world. I’d especially like to ask it of so-called legendary icons like Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan (you nihilistic twit!) and Eric Clapton (you simpering wimp!), Eminem (don’t fall for that Democratic crap) and Doctor Dre (abandon your mansion and step up now!).

The whole music scene, and all the retards who think they’re cool by following it, are nothing but robotic moral cowards who have abdicated their responsibility to the world. Who will have the courage to step forward, like all these brave folks in the 9/11 skeptics movement have done?

And when you try to escape into the pleasing triviality of sports, and confront the reality that baseball’s two greatest sluggers have both cheated to achieve their accomplishments, you should get some depressing inkling that the whole enterprise is a lie meant to distract you from the even more unpleasant fact that your government, through its controlled media apparatus, has stolen your life, fed you with falsehoods, and deliberately murdered your children with poisoned food, toxic drugs, and phony wars.

So I think it’s time you checked the scoreboard, and find out what the score really is.

America is dead, and the international bankers are getting ready to pick its carcass. Anybody still walking around is now a willing zombie waving that flag of mass murder and injustice, the Stars and Stripes.

But hey, it’s the perfect cloth to drape over your coffin, although no photographs will be allowed. And hey, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s going round ... due to the condition of both the corpse and the culture, why, that sound is the out-of-control ticking of a Geiger counter, which may be the real song about Fallujah that nobody apparently has the guts to write.

John Kaminski’s Internet essays can be seen on hundreds of websites around the world. They have been collected into two anthologies, the latest of which is titled “The Perfect Enemy,” about how the Zionist-controlled U.S. government created the terrorist group known as al-Qaeda. His booklet “The Day America Died: Why You Shouldn’t Believe the Official Story of What Happened on September 11, 2001” was written especially for those who cling to the government’s false explanation of the events of that tragic day. For more information go to http://www.johnkaminski.com/

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

by RiverbendWednesday, March 23, 2005

Two Years...

We've completed two years since the beginning of the war. These last two years have felt like two decades, but I can remember the war itself like it was yesterday.

The sky was lit with flashes of red and white and the ground rocked with explosions on March 21, 2003. The bombing had actually begun on the dawn of the 20th of March, but it got really heavy on the 21st. I remember being caught upstairs when the heavier bombing first began. I was struggling to drag down a heavy cotton mattress from my room for an aunt who was spending a couple of weeks with us and I suddenly heard a faraway ‘whiiiiiiiiiiiiiz’ that sounded like it might be getting closer.

I began to rush then- pulling and pushing at the heavy mattress; trying to half throw, half haul it down stairs. I got stuck halfway down the staircase and, at that point, the whizzing sound had grown so loud, it felt like it was coming out of my head. I shoved again at the mattress and called E.’s name to help lug the thing downstairs but E. was outside with my cousin, trying to see where the missiles were going. I repositioned and began to kick the heavy mattress, not caring how it got downstairs, just wanting to be on the ground floor when the missile hit.

The mattress finally budged and began to slip and slide down the remaining 10 steps, finally landing in a big pile at the end of the staircase. I followed it in a hurry, taking two steps at a time, expecting to feel a big “BOOM” at any moment. I tripped on the last step in the mad dash for the ground floor and ended up in a heap on the cotton mass on the ground. The explosion came the same moment- followed by a series of larger explosions that didn’t sound like the ordinary missiles we had been experiencing the last 40 hours or so.

The house was chaotic that moment. The parents were running, dad trying to locate his battery-powered radio and mother making sure the stove was turned off. She was also yelling orders over her shoulder, commanding us to go into the “safe room” we had specially decorated with duct tape and soft cushions, or ‘bomb-proofed’ as my cousin liked to say. The aunt that was staying with us was running around, shrilly trying to find her two granddaughters (who were already in the safe room with their mother). The cousin was rushing around turning off kerosene heaters and opening windows so that they wouldn’t shatter with the impact. E. hurried in from outside, trying to keep his expression casual under the paleness of his face.

Through all of this, the bombing was getting louder and more frequent- the earth rumbling and shuddering with every explosion. E. was saying something about the sky but the whooshing sound coming from above was so loud, we couldn’t hear what he was saying. “The sky is full of red and white lights…” He yelled, helping me rise shakily from the mattress. “You want to go outside and see?” I looked at him like he was crazy and made him help me drag the mattress into the living room. We rushed back into the safe room and the bombs were still falling loud and fast, one after the other. Sometimes they felt like they were falling right next door, and other times, it felt like they were falling a few blocks away. We knew they were further than that.

The faces in the safe room were white with tension. My cousin’s wife sat in the corner, a daughter on either side, her arms around their shoulders, murmuring prayers softly. My cousin was pacing in front of the safe room door, looking grim and my father was trying to find a decent radio station on the small AM/FM radio he carried around wherever he went. My aunt was hyperventilating at this point and my mother sat next to her, trying to distract her with the voice of the guy on the radio talking about the rain of bombs on Baghdad.

A seemingly endless 40 minutes later, there was a slight lull in the bombing- it seemed to have gotten further away. I took advantage of the relative calm and went to find the telephone. The house was cold because the windows were open to keep them from shattering. I reached for the telephone, fully expecting to find it dead but I was amazed to find a dial tone. I began dialing numbers- friends and relatives. We contacted an aunt and an uncle in other parts of Baghdad and the voices on the other end were shaky and wary. “Are you OK? Is everyone OK?” Was all I could ask on the phone. They were ok… but the bombing was heavy all over Baghdad. Shock and awe had begun.

Two years ago this week.

What followed was almost a month of heavy bombing. That chaotic night became the intro to endless chaotic days and long, sleepless nights. You get to a point during extended air-raids where you lose track of the days. You lose track of time. The week stops being Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc. The days stop being about hours. You begin to measure time with the number of bombs that fell, the number of minutes the terror lasted and the number of times you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire and explosions.

We try to put it out of our heads, but it comes back anyway. We sit around sometimes, when there’s no electricity, or when we’re gathered for lunch or dinner and someone will say, “Remember two years ago when…” Remember when they bombed Mansur, a residential area… When they started burning the cars in the streets with Apaches… When they hit the airport with that bomb that lit up half of the city… When the American tanks started rolling into Baghdad…?

Remember when the fear was still fresh- and the terror was relatively new- and it was possible to be shocked and awed in Iraq?

Even though I had a Zionist-Afrikaner settler professor in Israel write on his blog and on David Hororwitz’s far right reactionary site that I am semi-literate because I do not have a college degree—only people with degrees in political science are capable, according to this professor, of forming intelligent political opinions, that is to say he considers about 99.99% of the population incapable of making political decisions, in other words this guy is a snobbish elitist with nothing but contempt for ordinary people—I would suggest most people interested in politics completely avoid the university and instead begin reading as many books on political history and theory as possible. In short order, the universities will become reactionary right-wing indoctrination centers. Consider:

“Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out ‘leftist totalitarianism’ by ‘dictator professors’ in the classrooms of Florida’s universities,” reports Alligator Online. “The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee.”

“I am working right now to get legislatures and university boards to ratify the Academic Bill of Rights, and already I can report that Colorado, Georgia and Missouri lawmakers are on the verge of doing just that,” writes former commie transmuted into far right field Strausscon David Horowitz. “I know this is ambitious, but ask yourself: what options do we have? Do we just give up on our colleges and accept that the radical, anti-American left is in charge of teaching our nation’s future leaders? No. We cannot do that. ”

It really pisses off these guys that colleges have faculty that are not right-wing zealots like them who think Muslims should be third-class citizens (every Muslim a Palestinian) and who also have professors and educators who teach that there are a few problems with the foreign policy of the United States and relate this to their students. Telling the truth about American history will soon become illegal in Florida and the Fox News world view will be the only one permitted on college campuses—or anywhere else, for that matter.

It should be noted here that Dennis Baxley was brainwashed by Horowitz. “Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, filed House Bill 837 after he attended a meeting last year in St. Louis where well-known conservative activist David Horowitz railed against liberal biases on campus toward professors and students. The bill borrows heavily from a template used in similar bills filed nationwide with the help of Horowitz’s group, Students for Academic Freedom,” according to this newspaper item.

It should be noted here that Horowitz’s attack on academic freedom is precisely what the far right in this country want. Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture is suffused with millions of dollars from the Scaife Foundations and other far right reactionaries. For instance, the John M. Olin Foundation gave Horowitz $150,000 in 2003 (see this funding chart). Olin made its money on chemical and munitions and also supports the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace, all either far right and neocon think tanks. The The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has rained hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years on Horowitz and his organization.

“Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privatization of government services,” writes Media Transparency. “As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who’s Who of the U.S.Right. Bradley money supports such major right-wing groups as the Heritage Foundation, source of policy papers on budget cuts, supply-side economics and the Star Wars military plan for the Reagan administration; the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, which provides funding for right-wing research and a network of conservative student newspapers; and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, literary home for such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D’Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William Bennett, and arch-conservative jurists Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia.” You may remember Charles Murray, the author who wrote a book arguing that poverty is the result, not of social conditions or policies, but of the inferior genetic traits of a sub-class of human beings. It is precisely this sub-class of human beings who are fighting the Strausscon wars in the Middle East, the sort of wars (or rather invasions and unprovoked attacks) that make people like John M. Olin stinking rich. If Bush and Crew get their way the slightly less than sub-class of human beings—the middle class—will be soon be fighting these brush wars of empire, so profitable for the Olins and Scaifes of the world.

Horowitz is simply a front man for what the far reactionary right wants to do in this country—eliminate all opposition or at least excessively marginalize it, beginning with the colleges and universities. Ward Churchill is the poster boy for this effort, specifically chosen because of his radicalism and also because he is viewed as a 60s throwback and the far right hates with a passion anything smacking of 60s radicalism or even liberalism.

It can be argued that Richard Mellon Scaife is in large part responsible for the aggressive and hateful attitude of many of the media reactionaries so popular these days. “In his hilarious 2003 book Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), Al Franken argues that the abusive tone of rightwing zealots like Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter can be traced back to Scaife, and in particular to one episode in 1981 when Scaife verbally assaulted a reporter,” notes Right Web. “When the reporter, Karen Rothmeyer of the Columbia Journalism Review, asked Scaife about his funding of conservative groups, he replied, ‘You fucking communist cunt, get out of here.’ Franken writes that Scaife ‘went on to tell her that she was ugly and that her teeth were “terrible.” Of Ms. Rothmeyer’s mother, who was not present, he said, “She’s ugly, too.” Sensing that it was time to wrap up the interview, Ms. Rothmeyer thanked Scaife for his time. He bade her farewell with a cheery “Don’t look behind you.”

Such ugliness and hatred drives the far right—for instance, calling Ward Churchill and a “cigar store Indian” or just about anything that comes out of Ann Coulter’s mouth or word processor. Consider the far right’s unremitting attack on Clinton—and Clinton was not even a liberal, he was right of center and a CIA op who snitched on the antiwar movement. Only extreme right fanaticism bordering on fascism will suffice for these Machiavellian sociopaths. Center of righters who entertain a handful of liberal social ideals are up for attack the same way the Ward Churchills are.

It is time to give the middle finger to the university. If you want to receive a balanced and objective education—and yes the stains of American history and the carnage of U.S, foreign policy are part of that balanced and objective education—then there is no reason to attend a vastly overpriced university. Most of us are better off self-directing our own educations. As for the degree required to get a decent job… you might want to ask the guy in India who works for one quarter or less than you do about how far his U.S. university education got him (I guess working a help desk for a credit card company in Bangalore for a couple bucks an hour is better than starving to death).

The far right—okay, let’s call them what they are, authoritarians, even fascists—will not rest until they own all opinion in this country and hound those of us with contrary opinions from the commons… or out of the country entirely and maybe even into re-education camps. As history notes—the history Horowitz does not want you to learn in college—authoritarianism and fascism ultimately lead to repression (ask the Argentineans) and even death squads.

Crossing the Canadian border with his wife and infant son, Jeremy Hinzman told Immigration he was coming to see "friends." He didn't mention his friends were Quaker sponsors, setting up refuge for the young soldier who'd just deserted the Army. Today, the Canadian government denied Hinzman's request for asylum, proving they are no friends of peace, or justice. -{ape}

Jeremy, Nga, and Liam

A Nation in DenialC.L. Cookpej.orgMarch 24, '05

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board today trumped the Geneva Convention and international jurisprudence, and legitimized the U.S. led preemptive invasion of Iraq. By denying Jeremy Hinzman's case for refuge in this country, a defense claiming the war was, and remains, blatant criminality on the part of the U.S. government, the board has unilaterally reversed the opinion of the Nuremburg Court, negating its assertion that it is the duty of both citizenry and soldiery to refuse to obey orders to commit war crimes.

I met Jeremy last year, when he gave a talk at UVic. The soft-spoken former member of the 82nd Airborne explained how he, like many impoverished kids hoping for a college education, joined the Army not long out of high school, in the days just prior to the infamous 9/11 terrorist attack. He told of his experience in boot camp, and his growing discomfort with his decision to join the military. He described how the dehumanizing training, with its KILL, KILL emphasis just wasn't for him.

Shortly before he and his wife, Nga's first child was born, the couple began attending Quaker meetings. The renown pacifists only reinforced his determination to follow a peace-centred life, something not jibing with the hyper-violence of his paratrooper milieu. He filed for Conscientious Objector (CO) status with the Army in the months prior to 9/11, but in typical SNAFU-fashion, the Army never processed his application.

Then came Operation Enduring Freedom.

Jeremy was shipped off to Afghanistan with the 82nd. His second attempt at CO status had been filed and received by the Army by this time, and he was assigned a non-combat role. He survived his tour, and returned to the United States without firing a shot in anger, but bore witness to what he described as war crimes commited by his comrades. He was hoping to serve out his time, which had become increasingly difficult since his CO application, when the word came he was to go to Iraq to take part in Operation Iraqi Liberation. It was then, he knew it was time to get out.

Jeremy and Liam

There was a time when Canada tried, at least, to back up some of its high-minded ideals. There was a time when Canadian leaders felt more responsive to the law of the land, and to the sentiment of the people. Pierre Trudeau's refusal to "repatriate" those young Americans seeking asylum from the draft to serve the U.S. war against Vietnam being a shining case in point. And we Canadians profited Trudeau's decision: We gained respect in the world, and gained the skills and loyalty of those thousands of America's best and brightest. A Brain Gain to be sure, but also a morality bonanza for us. But sadly, what we're left with for leadership today doesn't recognize any of this. Paul Martin and his "Liberals" has no use for history, no use for morality, no imagination for the future, no vision of an autonomous Canada.

By denying Jeremy Hinzman's right for freedom and dignity in this once great land, Canada has lost more than the possible contributions of a fine and decent man, we've lost too that part of ourselves as Canadians that gives truth to the now empty rhetoric identifying US as defenders of justice in the world. We've denied the great injustice visited on the Iraqi people by this blasphemous invasion and occupation and, as designed by this cynical decision, we've sacrificed the hopes those growing thousands of other "Jeremy's" in the United States held for sanctuary here.

Half-mast the flag, fellow Canadians, for this truly is a sad day for our nation.

Chris Cook produces and host the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcastfrom theUniversity of Victoria, and serves as an editor at the progressive website, PEJ.org.Please too visit his blog, GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

It marked one of the largest mass arrests in New York City's history- and the arrested had done nothing illegal. For many New Yorkers, August was the first time they heard of what has become a monthly ritual for New York City¹s bike community ­a free-forming ride called Critical Mass.

Still We Ride is a documentary that captures the joyous atmosphere of this August ride before the arrests began and the chaos that followed. It recounts how this ride first started in San Francisco over 10 years ago and chronicles the police crackdown and resulting court battles in New York over the last seven months. The movie takes on issues of civil iberties, surveillance, the power of mainstream media, and the benefits of alternative means of transportation.

--------------------------------Stay tuned for the premiere of the finished piece in May 2005http://www.bicyclefilmfestival.com

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Baghdad Burning ... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Two Years...We've completed two years since the beginning of the war. These last two years have felt like two decades, but I can remember the war itself like it was yesterday.

The sky was lit with flashes of red and white and the ground rocked with explosions on March 21, 2003. The bombing had actually begun on the dawn of the 20th of March, but it got really heavy on the 21st. I remember being caught upstairs when the heavier bombing first began. I was struggling to drag down a heavy cotton mattress from my room for an aunt who was spending a couple of weeks with us and I suddenly heard a faraway ‘whiiiiiiiiiiiiiz’ that sounded like it might be getting closer.

I began to rush then- pulling and pushing at the heavy mattress; trying to half throw, half haul it down stairs. I got stuck halfway down the staircase and, at that point, the whizzing sound had grown so loud, it felt like it was coming out of my head. I shoved again at the mattress and called E.’s name to help lug the thing downstairs but E. was outside with my cousin, trying to see where the missiles were going. I repositioned and began to kick the heavy mattress, not caring how it got downstairs, just wanting to be on the ground floor when the missile hit.

The mattress finally budged and began to slip and slide down the remaining 10 steps, finally landing in a big pile at the end of the staircase. I followed it in a hurry, taking two steps at a time, expecting to feel a big “BOOM” at any moment. I tripped on the last step in the mad dash for the ground floor and ended up in a heap on the cotton mass on the ground. The explosion came the same moment- followed by a series of larger explosions that didn’t sound like the ordinary missiles we had been experiencing the last 40 hours or so.

The house was chaotic that moment. The parents were running, dad trying to locate his battery-powered radio and mother making sure the stove was turned off. She was also yelling orders over her shoulder, commanding us to go into the “safe room” we had specially decorated with duct tape and soft cushions, or ‘bomb-proofed’ as my cousin liked to say. The aunt that was staying with us was running around, shrilly trying to find her two granddaughters (who were already in the safe room with their mother). The cousin was rushing around turning off kerosene heaters and opening windows so that they wouldn’t shatter with the impact. E. hurried in from outside, trying to keep his expression casual under the paleness of his face.

Through all of this, the bombing was getting louder and more frequent- the earth rumbling and shuddering with every explosion. E. was saying something about the sky but the whooshing sound coming from above was so loud, we couldn’t hear what he was saying. “The sky is full of red and white lights…” He yelled, helping me rise shakily from the mattress. “You want to go outside and see?” I looked at him like he was crazy and made him help me drag the mattress into the living room. We rushed back into the safe room and the bombs were still falling loud and fast, one after the other. Sometimes they felt like they were falling right next door, and other times, it felt like they were falling a few blocks away. We knew they were further than that.

The faces in the safe room were white with tension. My cousin’s wife sat in the corner, a daughter on either side, her arms around their shoulders, murmuring prayers softly. My cousin was pacing in front of the safe room door, looking grim and my father was trying to find a decent radio station on the small AM/FM radio he carried around wherever he went. My aunt was hyperventilating at this point and my mother sat next to her, trying to distract her with the voice of the guy on the radio talking about the rain of bombs on Baghdad.

A seemingly endless 40 minutes later, there was a slight lull in the bombing- it seemed to have gotten further away. I took advantage of the relative calm and went to find the telephone. The house was cold because the windows were open to keep them from shattering. I reached for the telephone, fully expecting to find it dead but I was amazed to find a dial tone. I began dialing numbers- friends and relatives. We contacted an aunt and an uncle in other parts of Baghdad and the voices on the other end were shaky and wary. “Are you OK? Is everyone OK?” Was all I could ask on the phone. They were ok… but the bombing was heavy all over Baghdad. Shock and awe had begun.

Two years ago this week.

What followed was almost a month of heavy bombing. That chaotic night became the intro to endless chaotic days and long, sleepless nights. You get to a point during extended air-raids where you lose track of the days. You lose track of time. The week stops being Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc. The days stop being about hours. You begin to measure time with the number of bombs that fell, the number of minutes the terror lasted and the number of times you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire and explosions.

We try to put it out of our heads, but it comes back anyway. We sit around sometimes, when there’s no electricity, or when we’re gathered for lunch or dinner and someone will say, “Remember two years ago when…” Remember when they bombed Mansur, a residential area… When they started burning the cars in the streets with Apaches… When they hit the airport with that bomb that lit up half of the city… When the American tanks started rolling into Baghdad…?

Remember when the fear was still fresh- and the terror was relatively new- and it was possible to be shocked and awed in Iraq?

Monday, March 21, 2005

I don’t often read Mark Milke’s occasional Times-Colonist column; for how many years can one be expected to indulge “trickle-down,” Reagonomics? But today’s (March 21, ’05) headline, ‘The Left is still in love with Cuba’ caught my eye. . - {ape}

You see, I’d just received an invitation from Randy Caravaggio at the Goods for Cuba Committee to come around to meet Cuban, Antonio Pubillones during his visit to Victoria. Senor Pubillones is the newly appointed First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa. So, I endured Mark’s tortured prose, curious to “learn” more about Cuba

Sean Holman

I discovered Canada possesses, not unlike Mark’s ideological wellspring, the United States, an endangered political species known as “The Left.” His obvious disparagement of these doomed fools makes clear his apposite political self-identification. Quoting fellow-traveller, Sean Holman, the upstart firebrand recently seconded to serve the interests of the well-heeled from the op-ed pages of the Vancouver Sun, Mark assails Cuba’s health care system. Apparently Cuba, the country that has sent more medical professionals to serve the neglected healthcare needs of the world’s poorest countries than any other, own's medical system is a mess.

Between excoriations of those “Lefties,” like NDP Vancouver-Fairview candidate Gregor Robertson, showing the temerity to acknowledge Cuba’s contributions to the world, Mark charges on in Helmsian fashion, labelling President Fidel Castro a tyrant. And where, other than his shrill political bed-fellow Holman does he draw his insights? From none other than the director of the Urban Renaissance Institute, Lawrence “Larry” Solomon.

URI is but one arm of a vast collection of “public interest” organizations funded primarily through “foundations” and corporations whose tentacles reach into every sphere of modern life. From health care to water privatization, these green veneered organizations claim the public weal, while forwarding the interests of their corporate sponsors.

El Presidente

To be fair and balanced to Mark’s journalistic “efforts,” he does point out Cuba’s devastated economy, but ascribes a mere sentence to the effects of the forty-plus year U.S. embargo. And even then, he’s quick to discount those effects, saying, “Of course, I’d blame part of that on the U.S. trade embargo: Cut off trade and people suffer. But the blame-America [sic] privilege is one any hard-left, wide-eyed, Castro loving New Democrat can’t avail themselves of.” Why those goggle-eyed Lefties cannot do this Mark fails to explain. Instead, the intrepid defender of the indefensible sallies forth, damning “run-of-the-mill repression,” stating “wait for it!” Cuba’s gulags. (No, not Guantanamo Bay.) And where does he glean his insights into Cuba’s oppression? From the long discredited door-stopper, ‘The Black Book of Communism,’ a contradicting collection of essays written by reformed “fellow-travellers.”

Oddest of all though in Mark’s milquetoast meanderings is his criticism of President Castro’s alleged wealth. He claims (unattributed) a personal fortune of 550 million U.S. dollars to Fidel Castro. Why Mark, if that's true, doesn’t that make El Presidente your kind of people?

I'll present your article, Mark to Senor Pubillones for his consideration and, "Wait for it!" get back to you.

C.L. Cook is the media editor at pej.org and the producer and host of Gorilla Radio on CFUV Radio and gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Here’s one of the reasons the U.S. military has targeted al-Jazeera over the years: it tells the truth and the truth—at least when it comes to US atrocities—is strictly verboten. For instance, al-Jazeera has posted an article on its web site documenting war crimes in Fallujah. “The picture [independent journalists] are painting is of US soldiers killing whole families, including children, attacks on hospitals and doctors, the use of napalm-like weapons and sections of the city destroyed.” In the feature, al-Jazeera quotes Dahr Jamail, who reported about the war crimes in Fallujah weeks ago. Also quoted is Dr. Salem Ismael, another witness to war crimes who told his story weeks ago as well.

For some reason al-Jazeera wonders why none of these stories—including the use of “weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud” and “bombs [that] exploded into large fires that burned peoples’ skin even when water was dumped on their bodies, which is the effect of phosphorous weapons, as well as napalm—are not addressed by the corporate media. Naturally, this is a no-brainer—the corporate media is complicit with the Bushcons and the Pentagon in perpetuating war crimes against the Iraqi people. It is their job to ignore crimes against humanity and repeat verbatim Bush’s nonsense about democracy.

Most Americans know absolutely nothing about what happened in Fallujah, essentially a textbook repeat of what the Israelis did in Jenin, only on a much larger scale (the United States likes to do things in a big way). Precious few Americans have seen the photographs from Fallujah of rotted bodies, bloated and grotesque, some with entire limbs gnawed off by starving animals. See Dahr Jamail’s pictures of the horrific death and carnage inside Fallujah here. Jamail’s images are not ready for primetime and never will be.

Meanwhile, those of us who understand what is really going on in Iraq, are living through a nightmarish ethical dilemma. How can we continue to live in this country and pay our taxes—more akin to ransom—and attempt to maintain the semblance of a normal life while tens of thousands of Iraqis die horrifically? It is nearly impossible. Meanwhile, there will be demonstrations soon on the anniversary of Bush’s invasion, demos that will likely be attended by hundreds of thousands but demos that will do absolutely nothing to put an end to the Pentagon’s murderous rampages. Bush, Congress, and the Pentagon are well beyond demonstrations, demonstrations seriously downplayed by the corporate media and easily ignored by the masters of war. Demos will change nothing and the carnage and mass murder will continue.

It appears the insanity will only stop when the empire crumbles or the military engages in mutiny. It appears the former is well under way with a troubled dollar and an absurdly unimaginable debt. If China and Asia stop financing the debt of the United States, the country is screwed. In short order, as the financial machinery slowly grinds to a halt, the war machine will cease to pose a threat to the world. Americans may suffer privations worse than those suffered during the so-called Great Depression, but it will be, to paraphrase Madeline Albright, a price worth paying. Americans may lose their jobs and go hungry, but at least Iraqi children and mothers will be safe from marauding yahoo soldiers with trigger fingers and hatred for “towel heads” they apparently are able to now easily kill.

March 17, 2005Israel Approves of Wolfowitz as World Bank Head HonchoNot surprisingly, Israel likes the idea of Paul Wolfowitz heading up the World Bank. “Senior Israeli officials reacted with satisfaction Wednesday to news that US President George W. Bush tapped Paul Wolfowitz as his choice to be the next head of the World Bank,” writes the neocon Jerusalem Post. “Wolfowitz’s appointment to head the World Bank will have significance for Israel since the World Bank is expected to play a key economic role in Gaza after Israel’s withdrawal… The World Bank is expected to supervise the implementation of hundreds of million of dollars worth of projects to rebuild Gaza. One official said that Wolfowitz would likely ensure that the Palestinians fulfill strict conditions regarding reform and democratization in order to get the money.”

In other words, rebuild what the IDF has destroyed over the years. Of course, this rebuilding will not be in the interest of the Palestinians, but Wall Street bankers and multinational corporations. The World Bank and the IMF are all about increasing poverty through so-called structural adjustment policies: decrease domestic consumption and shift scarce resources into production of cash crops for export—once the World Bank and the IMF sink their teeth into a country, state-owned companies and many state services are privatized, civil services are drastically downsized, and health and education expenditures are cut and restructured. “The absolute number of people living in poverty rose in the 1990’s in Eastern Europe, South Asia, Latin America the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa—all areas that came under the sway of adjustment programs. What’s more, the World Bank has an astounding 65-70 per cent failure rate of its projects in the poorest countries,” writes CorpWatch.

In fact, the World Bank is a scam set up to enrich multinational corporations at the expense of poor people. “If the world’s poor are the losers in World Bank/IMF programs-a fact recognized not only by critics but even some Bank officials—then corporations are the winners. Each year, the World Bank awards some 40,000 contracts to private firms. And the US Treasury Department calculates that for every US $1 Washington contributes to international development banks, US corporations receive more than double that amount in bank-financed procurement contracts.”

Gazans are a prefect target for Wall Street bankers and multinational corporations, since the World Bank and the IMF pick on the most impoverished people in the world. “The Palestinian recession is among the worst in modern history,” writes Electronic Intifada. “Average personal incomes have declined by more than a third since September 2000, and nearly a half of Palestinians now live below the poverty line.” Imposing further “austerity measures” on Gazans—the hallmark of the World Bank and the IMF—would verge on institutional sadism.

Thus the Zionist Wolfowitz is a perfect choice to head up the World Bank. For a minute there I thought the World Bank had lost its mind—mulling over appointing the rock star Bono to the post—but now it is firmly back on track, delving the depths in search of the most ruthless individuals to impoverish even more people and thus enrich the already stinking rich.

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